Like in 2015, Jo Ann Cousin and I are planning to run as a team for the two Assembly seats in the 14th District. We’ll need to collect at least 100 signatures by June 6 in order to get on the ballot. If you’d like to help, call me at 609-443-6782. Or come out to the next monthly meeting of the Mercer County Greens on March 27 (7:00pm) to be held at the West Windsor Branch of the Mercer County Library (333 N Post Rd, Princeton Junction, NJ 08550).

In these difficult economic times, Green Party candidates across the country are picking up the New Deal torch the Democrats have dropped.

People may not remember that FDR’s New Deal promoted full employment (a job for everyone who needs one), universal health care, and infrastructure improvements . . . all funded by progressive taxation.

Seventy-five years later the “Green New Deal” incorporates the above. Beyond that, it adds policies to promote ecological sustainability and economic democracy.

To revive the economy, the Green Party advocates:
. lowering taxes on working class and middle class families;
. fully funding public schools and colleges;
. providing quality health care for all New Jersey citizens through an efficient single payer system;
. a state-owned bank to target investments into renewable energy, public transportation, conservation, and organic agriculture.

Interest in the Occupy Wall Street movement shows that many people (not just activists) are fed up with stagnation and the dysfunction of the two long-dominant parties. Here in New Jersey Chris Christie advocates the economic agenda of the big Wall Street bankers. He’d rather balance the budget on the backs of teachers and public sector workers than require the millionaires and multinationals to pay their fair and proper share of taxes. He cuts programs that provide critical support to working class families. Only the Green Party offers a bold and coherent alternative: the “Green New Deal”!

Neither teachers nor state workers nor unions are to blame for the fiscal crisis of the state. Years of tax cuts for the richest individuals and tax avoidance by the big corporations are the real culprits.

In 1980 the top 10% of income earners accounted for 33% of the state population’s total income. Now they account for almost 50%. Disparities of income and wealth are at an all-time high. So is the state government’s revenue shortfall. There’s a connection!

The Green Party says: Don’t further burden those middle- and working-class citizens who are struggling to maintain a decent standard of living. Instead, get back to fairly taxing the bloated balance sheets of the super-rich and the “too big to fail” corporations!

Fair taxation would solve the problem of government revenue shortfalls

“General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None [zero taxes paid]. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.”http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?pagewanted=all

“Warren Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation.”http://tusb.stanford.edu/2007/07/warren_buffet_has_a_lower_tax.html

The Vermont legislature has passed a single-payer healthcare bill. A similar bill that had formerly been passed but vetoed is being revived in California.

While the insurance companies have been successful in derailing the movement for single-payer (Medicare for All) at the national level, if one state after another shows a preference for healthcare sanity the momentum could become unstoppable.

In no other industrialized nation in the world do insurance companies play such a dominant role in healthcare delivery as they do in this country. The result is that Americans pay twice as much as Europeans for less service. Currently we are ranked 37th in the world in terms of the quality of healthcare and have the highest infant mortality rate of any industrialized country.

Universal single-payer healthcare is not socialized medicine. The government would not own the hospitals and the doctors would not be government employees. Under single-payer, we would simply remove the middlemen. The government would pay the bills but healthcare would still be delivered by private doctors and hospitals.

Taxes to fund such a system would be lower than what we currently pay through employers for our healthcare coverage. Furthermore when we lose our jobs, we will not lose our healthcare! There would be no co-pays, no deductibles, no “pre-existing conditions”, no “out of network” physicians. HMOs and drug companies would not be able to tell doctors what treatments and medications they can prescribe. Everyone could choose their own physician.

New Jersey should join other states that are proposing to take out insurance company middlemen. We could demonstrate to the whole country how the cost of healthcare would be lower under single-payer and the quality of healthcare would increase dramatically . . . because it would be the doctors, not the insurance companies who would decide how to treat patients.

Worldwide, few democracies limit voters to just two choices on the ballot. Surveys indicate that American voters would be interested in seeing the growth of new parties to provide more voices and more choices in elections.

The Green Party is stronger on environmental issues than either the Republicans or the Democrats. We recognize that the global warming crisis necessitates rapid action in areas such as renewable energy and fuel efficiency.

Green politics is vibrant in countries all around the world because the Green parties have a unique perspective on the issues confronting humanity at this critical juncture. Central to our program is the idea of renewing local community life. Big Business and Big Government both drain resources from local economies. Greens advocate community-based economics and a grassroots form of democracy.